Magic and history top agenda for 2017 Leadership Retreat June 15-17

Round table discussions and professional programs focusing on team building and leadership (with some magic thrown in) along with a historic perspective on how the press covered a notorious Old West outlaw are on tap for the Texas Press Leadership Retreat scheduled June 15-17 at the Inn of the Mountain Gods, Ruidoso, N.M.
Registration forms are now available online at http://texaspress.com/summer-retreat. Members are encouraged to reserve rooms now by calling 575-464-7777. Deadline to reserve rooms at the TPA rate of $149 per night is June 1.
David Hira, a magician, entertainer and motivation speaker based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, will be the featured speaker at the Thursday, June 15, dinner and at the Friday, June 15, breakfast. His program, “IsPossible!” shows how to turn “Impossible” into “IsPossible.”
“By learning to build a strong teams of diverse people and look ‘outside of the box,’ the solutions to everything are found in the connections we make, the people we embrace,” Hira explained in a statement on his website.
Through his annual tours, Hira has performed his “magic” on cruise ships, at The White House, at Caesar’s Palace and on a total of 44 television shows. His extensive entrepreneurial background also gives him the ability to inspire business owners and professionals as a keynote speaker for business conferences and meetings.
Speaker for the Friday, June 16, luncheon will be Dr. Cynthia Orozco, historian and professor of history and humanities at Eastern New Mexico University in Ruidoso. Her topic is “Billy the Kid and the Press.”
Orozco is from Cuero and has lived in Ruidoso for 20 years.
She has written newspaper articles published in the El Paso Times, McAllen Monitor, Austin American-Statesman, Cuero Record and San Antonio Express-News. She also has written some 80 articles for The Handbook of Texas and is serving on the board of the new publication, Handbook of Texas Women’s History. She is the author of the book “No Mexicans, Women or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement” and co-editor of “Mexican Americans in Texas History.” She has another book coming out soon, “No Ladies Allowed in Texas: Adela Sloss Vento, Mexican American Civil Rights Activist, Public Intellectual, and Feminist.”
She is a fellow of the Texas State Historical Association and a board member of the Historical Society of New Mexico.
She earned her bachelor of arts degree at The University of Texas at Austin and completed study for her doctorate at UCLA.
General sessions on Friday morning and Saturday morning will be a number of 30-minute roundtable discussions led by TPA members. In addition, an update on the Texas Legislature will be presented by Legislative Committee Chairman Bill Patterson and TPA Executive Vice President Donnis Baggett. They will discuss the fate of proposed legislation concerning open records, open meetings and public notices in newspapers, along with other topics of interest to the press in Texas.
Highlighting the activities Saturday will be the annual awards brunch, when winners in the 2017 Texas Better Newspaper Contest will receive their awards.
In addition, TPA will recognize newspaper veterans with 50 years service in the industry with the annual Golden 50 awards and recognize winners of The Frank W. Mayborn Award for Community Leadership and the Fred Hartman Excellence in Sportswriting Award.
TPA members who require non-smoking rooms are advised to reserve rooms as soon as possible by calling the Inn of the Mountain Gods at 575-464-7777.
The Robert Burns Golf Classic 2017
The Robert Burns Golf Classic benefiting the Texas Newspaper Foundation and sponsored by CenturyLink will take place on Friday afternoon, June 16, at the Inn of the Mountain Gods Golf Course.
Entry fee is $100 per player. Tee times begin at 2 p.m.
The annual tournament benefits the Texas Newspaper Foundation, a non-profit organization established in 1974 to “honor the past, protect the present and build the future of journalism in general and newspapers in particular.”
Through the foundation, mid-career journalists have access to workshops and seminars conducted by the Texas Center for Community Journalism at Texas Christian University. The foundation also sponsors the annual Texas newspaper Hall of Fame recognitions and helps preserve the stories of Texas journalists through the Texas Newspaper Oral History project at the University of Texas at Austin.

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The association promotes the welfare of Texas newspapers, encourages higher standards of journalism, and plays an important role in protecting the public’s right to know as an advocate of First Amendment liberties.